Dave/Zictor's Projects

Into the Second Dimension… Recently I’ve been...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:52:51 -0400

Into the Second Dimension…

Recently I’ve been wanting to make Pip more cartoony so I started off modelling some weirdly shaped buildings etc so I decided that the next Pip Short is going to be rendered like this. If it turns out to be a success I’ll continue to make them like this… its more fun too! :P

Ok so maybe I won’t update this blog on a daily basis,...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:40:14 -0400

Ok so maybe I won’t update this blog on a daily basis, I’ve literally been working on stuff I can’t talk about or upload bits of because it’s not my property or a friends… but hey ho, here we are with some progress. This is what I’ve been working on and the first complete Sketch from Randoms 2.

I swear I’ll have to record myself making something and upload a behind the scenes sort of thing. I think that might interest some people.

Flash CS6: Deco Tool So yesterday I watched a Live Stream by...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 20:40:21 -0400

Flash CS6: Deco Tool

So yesterday I watched a Live Stream by Kreid, and he was saying about how terrible the deco tool was inside of Flash and that Adobe should work on improving the software rather than random crap like that. Which I think is a valid statement…

So to annoy him in true dave fashion, I started playing with it and I made this. Yes that’s right. This is totally unproductive of me, but I’ve learned that I could create some pretty generic looking cartoony images using the brush. I think the buildings are probably the best part for something like a background but I wouldn’t rate it other than that… the fire is kinda cool though…

So this is a random picture made with the deco tool….. GO ME!

Pooch Animation Test I’m making a sketch with Pooch in it...

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 20:15:58 -0400

Pooch Animation Test

I’m making a sketch with Pooch in it for Randoms 2 and I need to have him running. I looked at a reference of a 4 legged animal running and you’ll not believe the weird ass positions the legs go into… so yeah I frame by framed the motion

I’ve been working on this all night and it’s not even very good… I basically wanted to give the illusion of him running along a road rather than Just have him static in the center of the screen running, so I’ve actually spent more time on the shitty background than I did on animating Pooch himself… but hey, the actual sketch will be rendered properly and I’ll spend days rendering it, putting the details in the streets… also have something for him to be chasing… will be worth it haha.

IF GAMORA IS PLAYED BY OLIVIA WILDE I’LL EXPLODE WITH...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:42:46 -0400

IF GAMORA IS PLAYED BY OLIVIA WILDE I’LL EXPLODE WITH JOY!

So yesterday they announced that some really buff dude is going to be playing Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Which is a given really as the character is quite muscly… but… I thought he was a bit too big for the role of Drax.

I had a bit of a conversation about who should be cast as Gamora and Olivia Wilde got suggested by one of my friends… which made me think OH GOD YES! So I made this to see what she’d look like as Gamora.

Technical Stuffs: I basically masked out all of her skin areas and changed the hue to green, and similar with around the eyes turning them yellowish. I then duplicated another layer for the band going around her head, turned it a darker green and added a slight drop shadow to it to make it look like it’s a garment not just her skin changing colour… I also masked out the lips and changed the green on them to be a bit darker as you can see from the reference image…

On a random note I saw her in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone today and I had no idea she’d show up in it, it felt like a strange coincidence that I’d done this then she shows up in the next thing I watch… bizarre… but every time she appeared on screen I was like HELLZ YEAH. Because she is that hot!

This is not what I was intending on uploading today but the Pip teaser I was going to release is still in need of sound. I’m just waiting on the files. It may come tonight, may come tomorrow or maybe as late as monday… but you’ll be seeing a clip from Randoms 2.

I’m working on a new sketch over the weekend so I’ll post the workings of that as I do it!

This is the first blog post about stuff I’m working...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:18:41 -0400

This is the first blog post about stuff I’m working on… I must do this every day from now on otherwise I’ll be less productive… thats the point of my previous post if you read it.

So… I’ve been working on this short called Marcus Macabre’s Freakshow Nightmare for Flitter Films. We shot the entire film on a green screen with a special camera that makes actors show up in black and white, we then have to key out the green screen and replace the background… which is the hard part. I’ve been modelling the background as a sort of warehouse thingy. It still needs 100% approval from the director but I think thats what we were going for.

The whole film gets very confusing later on as there are 8 different characters all standing around a table in the final shot, and they were all filmed separately from each other and repositioned… but when that shot is finally assembled it should kick ass.

There is also a girl who’s dress and lips show up red… sort of like Sin City. Now when we shot it she was actually wearing red, but all the other red in the frame gets pulled out too when I try and isolate it… namely in her fur coat. So next time this needs to be done I’ve decided to recommend a colour that is totally different from any other items of clothing that character is wearing, and then change the hue afterwards. This time round however I’m going to have to rotoscope the coloured areas, which I’m leaving until last :P

Today I’m seeing a Sound Designer about a future Pip the Robot idea I have so I will report on that tomorrow! :)

It’s already 2013, get off your arse and do something! As...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 06:33:22 -0400

It’s already 2013, get off your arse and do something!

As you may already know last year I made one image every day for the whole year and it kept me productive, and in between I made the Pip the Robot series of animations… and the workings of that tended to take over.

So yeah it gets to the end of December 2012 and I’m relieved that I don’t have the project hanging over my head every day nagging me to do something. I’d actually get worried if I wasn’t going to be around to get anything done.

Then I started playing Minecraft online… which just drained all of my creativity as you’re constantly building things and you get to show other people, work with them or be a bit competative… BAD MOVE, it’s actually sucked away a lot of the time where I should have been focussing on doing other stuff.

So I’ve decided to bring back the Daily Project… but I’m not doing something different every day, I’m working on larger projects and posting photo’s and videos of my progress, then at the end showing the final product, having a few days to relax between projects and then going straight onto the next one. I’ve wasted the first 2 months and 13 days of this year and it’s got me nowhere, and tbh I’ve been feeling like a pile of crap.

I was especially demotivated when I took a visit to an open day at Escape Studios who wanted me to pay £10k to do the course and said that there is basically no way into the VFX industry without doing one of their courses…

First off, Fuck you, I’ve already paid 9k for a Degree thats meant to open doors for me but isn’t, and secondly I don’t actually think it is VFX I want to go into as I actually rather enjoy animating a hell of a lot more. And secondly… I’d rather make cartoons. Which if you look back at my entire life’s history has been pretty evident. I have folders full of drawings I did when I was a kid, I was always writing stories and drawing pictures of what happened, and today I’m still basically doing the same thing but animating the stories I’ve come up with and putting them on the internet for all to see.

I know that its not making me any money, but I hope that it will at some point, and I know damn well it is possible, it’s just incredibly difficult to reach out to as many people as you need to to get these things to happen. Like reading this blog. I’ll be lucky if even one of you gets to this point and doesn’t just look at the picture and skim through it. I know for a fact not everyone looked at all the pictures I made last year. Some people still haven’t seen any of the Pip cartoons but that’s not going to stop me.

I’m going to make other stuff now as well, not just Pip. There are some projects that I’ve wanted to do for a long time but haven’t, that are a lot shorter and use 2D animation, which by the way is where I started.

It’s coming up to 10 years since I first opened Flash and made a stickman cartoon. Unfortunately I can’t find the very first thing I did but I’ve got some relatively early stuff already out there on the internet…

Anyway, follow the blog and the next load of posts will be shorter!

Wilhelm Scream

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:45:28 -0500

I notice it all the time now! It used to be a bit more subtle than it is now. It’s pretty much in everything made these days where someone gets shot, killed knocked over or is generally injured in many ways… I wish I was still deaf to it for it yet to be discovered and for me to think its awesome… I actually have the sound effect myself and I will most likely use it at some point…

If you don’t know what it is go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Scream

And now you know, and will notice it all the time.

Josh Von Wookie: Dave vs. Doctor Who (a.k.a Nerd Talk)

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:06:41 -0500

Josh Von Wookie: Dave vs. Doctor Who (a.k.a Nerd Talk):

thattallguyoverthere:

So me and my friend Dave (http://zictor2012.tumblr.com/) were talking nerdy today, and I feel like I have to share this one:

Dave: Okay, where’s this quote from: “I used my transtemporal depation methods to neutralise the residual electronic pattern?”

Me: (having never really seen Star Trek…

Did you know it was a leap year when you started your 2012 daily art project? xx

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:52:12 -0500

Yes I did, I think I stated it somewhere in the post explaining the project… or soon after when my friend patrick said I’m doing a “365” I said no actually its a “366”. I’m a fan of the extra day. Which lines up the dates nicely for this month as they were running one ahead of the date for the whole of february. So today is March 1st, and day 61, so it’ll make it easier for me to remember the day…

The folder I have full of the files has them all numbered in order 001 through to 061 at present also so that helps too, and remembering from the previous day.

And if you’re wondering why they start at 001 it’s so that when I arrange them in numerical order it’ll not make 100 and all them lot go to the top if they were just numbered 1 2 3 etc…

Hope that more than answers your question :)

How to use this blog?

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:01:50 -0500

This is a blog… I mainly like to babble about Films/TV/Video Games or stuff I’ve made… I don’t really find anything else that interesting etc… I’ve been using my other blog to show off my daily artwork but perhaps I could use this one to write down project ideas etc… This blog will still continue after the 2012 challenge is finished, but that one will stay as 366 posts…

I don’t like the way this blog has been used in the past, it was set up to document my uni project but that’s been over for a fairly long time now haha… Hmmmmm….

Followers

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:07:15 -0500

I only need 2 more followers on my OTHER BLOG, please can the ones on this one that aren’t following the other one go follow it, you get a pretty picture or something every day! :) http://zictor2012.tumblr.com

Something that's annoying me about Tumblr.

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:10:03 -0500

At the moment I’m doing a daily artwork project and I’m updating my other blog daily, yet every time I follow someone and get followed back they follow this blog and I’m unable to change it to that one. I’m not updating this one as often and its full of shit compared to the other one… so please go follow it. http://zictor2012.tumblr.com - You’ll only need to follow it until the end of the year or like the facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/dailyart2012

Date posting test.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:00:05 -0500

Testing posting on certain dates.

Other Blog

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:34:39 -0500

Check out my other blog that I actually update

2012 Project has its own blog.

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:07:12 -0500

I posted a few days ago about the project but forgot to mention I’d set up the new blog for it so: LINK

Bla bla bla 2012 bla bla.

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:12:08 -0500

Starting tomorrow I’m going to be making and sharing 1 image, video or animation per day and uploading it on various places across the internet and posting the links here. As well I will be adding them to the gallery on my as yet unpublished website that I’ve built with the HTML5 app, Hype by Tumult.

After this post the next 366 posts will be of the content I have made and uploaded on each day of the year. It’s very ambitious but I hope to learn a lot of new techniques etc and improve my skill set by doing this project.

I’m now going to move on and tell you about the “rules” just so it’s clear what I’m doing.

I will be making content to upload each day, but due to the nature of some of my work (CGI) and long render times I will most likely be making things and preparing them for each day, rather than sitting down on say March 12th and making my piece that day and uploading it that day.

It’s a bit confusing now I’ve written it down but basically you’ll see an image or animation each day of the year, but they can potentially take longer than that day to make. - Think that explains it a bit better… It’s kind of like, a cinema release date… but daily.

So now onto the nature of the project…

Basically I like thinking up new stuff each day and I’ve always done it. I can never really choose one solid area of art to focus on as many of them interest me. Since the early 2000’s I’ve made a LOT of digital art and that seems to have become what I do most but I still get inspired to make things by hand, or I come up with a story that I want to see as a film, or I want to make a film poster, or draw a tribute to something I like, mix two animals together or something. (I could do a cryptotaxidermy project… ewwwwww).

As of yet I’ve not figured out how to upload something if I’m unable to get to the internet on a certain day, say for instance I’m attending a Wedding or a Funeral or I get hit by a bus or something like that, it’s a bit inappropriate etc… But I’ll cross that bridge when/if it happens.

Anyway, Happy new Year and I hope this is clear. If not just enjoy the stream of images animations and videos that are coming your way. :)

I’m Scooby...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:47:44 -0400

I’m Scooby Doo!!!

wonchopanimation:

superhappy:

inkydonkey:

grapeyguts:

I’M FUCKING BATMAN

Ren and Stimpy shirt..

I am the creation of an angry Canadian animator

I’m naked now?

I am SHALLOW CHEST MAN.

I have special powers to make every villians’ chest to cave in and have most of their chest hair fall off, causing their heart to explode from the sheer force.

Newgrounds tank power?

Been doing some seasonal 3D Modelling. This is Jack...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:59:59 -0400

Been doing some seasonal 3D Modelling. This is Jack O’Lantern. He’s Irish.

I forget I can just post something short...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:49:59 -0400

Yeah most people’s Tumblr things are quite short or just an image. I usually don’t bother updating the world on what’s going on but here’s what’s going on…

I’m working Freelance! Had initially planned on working for a company first then gain experience before becoming freelance… got the opportunity a couple of weeks back to go freelance and thought, what the hell I’ll say yes I really want to have enough money for Christmas and do upgrade my “Office” suite. (New Mac)

So yeah, I’m now doing motion graphics, have only done stuff for the one company but as long as they keep giving me work I’ll be fine! Not overly sure how to go about getting more and I literally have nobody to guide me except myself. It’s like I’m walking on lillypads on a lake through fog… Could probably have come up with a better metaphor but yeah…

I will release a new personal project soon I promise… I actually suck at getting things finished because something new always comes along.

So much for being short!